"Lormador - I agree with your reasoning, there isn't an easy, or simple way to play legacy, every thing depends on the situation. I feel this way with dark confidant some times. Especially when they are blind flipping, sure they get a card, but if they take damage for it, its furthering my goal, so if they are a few life away from bolt range, I'd let him live. Every decision is subjective to the situation."
Yeap, and this is one of the reasons that burn is easy to play, but hard to master. Every little decision matters and you can't afford making any mistakes.
Pros:
-Instant speed
-Free
-Can't be countered (except stifle)
-Can't be destroyed
-Can't be duressed
-Removes two creatures (Good in case they got two creatures in gy and plays Exhume. And you even get a 2/2 flyer in play for free!)
tl;dr: He dies with a relic in hand, and even if he had played it turn 1, he could only have exiled one card and would still die. Now imagine he had a faerie instead.
so i'm playing in a legacy iq february 15th and looking for advice against death and taxes. usually beats me with their toolbox answers. we can easily run any of the five colors. i don't have the time or money to switch to the ashok list from the november gp. you guys have any good cards against them? all i have is whipflare
I'm talking about replacing Flames of the Blood Hand to Flame Javelin. Not adding yet another three mana cost spell. I know that burn don't want to kill creatures, but when you are staring at a Batterskull or an Exarch, you will be very glad to have Flame Javelin.
Fair enough. As I mentioned in my last post, I wouldn't recommend any 3-drops right now, as they are just too slow, but certainly if you're going to run them maindeck, Flame Javelin is a fine option. I get that it's good against Batterskull and Exarch, but if you are casting it on their creature turn 3/4/5 you are probably not in the best shape anyway. In a mono red list, I can see the use for stuff like Flame Javelin and Flames, but in the Jeskai lists there just isn't any room.
I would say you are in great shape when you take out Exarch in responds to Splinter Twin. So many turnes gained. Ofc in mono red.
@vismal, I think you should side out stuff like Searing Blaze against Esper, rather than Eidolon. They might have a few more 4+ CMC cards than the average opponent, but Eidolon still can lock them way out of the game. I'd also probably keep Eidolon in against Pod too, as like you said, it cuts off a lot of their lifegain and forces them to take damage even through blockers. Guide can be pretty bad against them, so that's an option if you need to make cuts, but I'd really only board out Eidolon in maybe the mirror. Everywhere else it seems too important.
Other than that, congrats. Sounds like you had a solid night!
It's simply too expensive in most cases. We aren't too concerned with killing creatures most of the time, and the extra damage, while relevant, still doesn't solve every bigger creature problem we might have (hello Seige Rhino). Mostly, there are easier and more efficient ways to deal 4 (Boros Charm, Flames of the Blood Hand), and we hardly have room for those spells as it is. I still think the more actual Bolts you can run, especially alongside Cruise, the better off you are. With 3 mana you can deal 6, 7, or 9 damage with the right mix of spells (assuming you just Cruised). Flame Javelin just isn't efficient enough in those cases.
I'm talking about replacing Flames of the Blood Hand to Flame Javelin. Not adding yet another three mana cost spell. I know that burn don't want to kill creatures, but when you are staring at a Batterskull or an Exarch, you will be very glad to have Flame Javelin.
Why doesn't anyone play with Flame Javelin? I play four of it and it's super sweet. It can target problematic creatures and it plays around Eidolon. Splinter Twin players are shocked when I take out their Exarch. I almost always win the mirror because of it, when there is one or more eidolons in play. I suggest everyone give it a try
Wow, Bobs deck is insane. Just won a very long game vs Punishing Jund. He had two goyfs in play, with plenty lands along with Grove and Punishing Fire. I feared that matchup, but Swiftspears ability to dodge Punishing Fire makes it very good.
People say burn is brainless, but I beg to differ. You have many more permutations of how you sequence your spells then most other decks, and you can't afford making mistakes.
Indeed. We've all had those games where we draw 5+ lands and lose. It doesn't feel great, but there's nothing that can be done about it. There's also no reason to feel bad about it. Those losses do not occur to errors in construction, nor in execution, and those are the losses that demand attention. Not random flooding, even if it is on camera and even if it is for Top 8 or what have you.
Filtration would actually be a worse idea in Burn than in any other deck in Legacy, and would actually make the deck worse (as odd as it sounds). I got this idea from one of the Everyday Eternal podcasts. Bear with me.
Burn's cards all do pretty much exactly the same thing, more so than any other deck. The business cards are all Lightning Bolts. The rest of it is just basic land. Rarely, we need a different sort of Lightning Bolt and it would be cool if we could draw this: maybe we really need an Eidolon or a Sulfuric Vortex or something, but the principle of the deck, forty Lightning Bolts, remains. Filtration in this deck would be filtering among only two basic elements: lands and Bolts.
Take another example Legacy deck that could run Brainstorm, but doesn't. Merfolk. Merfolk also has two basic elements: lands and Lord of Atlantis. Every creature in the deck strives to be Lord of Atlantis. One notices, however, that there is another major element in the deck: countermagic. There are three elements in Merfolk: lands, lords, and counterspells. Still not enough for any Merfolk player to play Brainstorm.
Let's look at a few of the more usual Brainstorm decks to contrast. Miracles has a whole pile of powerful cards that are very specialized and only useful at certain points of the game. It's quite a lot of work to manage the cards in hand and on top of the library so that the deck can take the necessary actions at any point in the game. A combo deck like Sneak and Show has 5 elements to manage: accelerants, cantrips, monsters, mana, and countermagic.
These decks need filtration to function in a way that Burn and Merfolk definitely do not.
When I mean filtration, I dont mean a pure cantrip, like Brainstorm or Ponder, but if we could get a good bolt with scry or something. Lava spike is already very bad relative to Lightning Bolt, so I dont see why Lava Spike couldn't have scry 1 or maybe 2.
Last time on SCG the burn player on camera got flooded and lost. This weekend the burn player on camera get screwed. This really hurts my heart to watch. Burn needs deck filtering, and don't point at Magma Jet.
That is about the list I piloted into the top 8 about a year ago, haven't played my affinity anymore since the complete fail at BOM in Paris. There I got turn 1 chalice almost every game and it got forced almost every time. It is a dangerous card as it lands it is gamewinning and if it doesn't your hand just is looking a lot worse.
The diffrences: I played with and without springleaf drums, you don't have enough creatures to fuel them anymore. Chalice permits you to play a little bit slower anyway and it hardly ever speeds up your chalice plan. I am a big fan of welding jar, I bought them before my tournement with the 4-chalice list and they are allstars ('abrupt decay, denied')
I would ad 4 more creatures, maybe ravagers are a plan (I like them a lot as they make interesting board states), but frogmite still is a good card as well, maybe a mix of the classics is the right choice. This deck rules in a meta with RUG-tempo (BUG and UWR are less good) and ironicly enough combo becomes really cute with a T1 chalice on the table (good luck drawing into your combo). also I tend to play 3 tezzerets, you never need 2 and you don't need it in your opening 7 either, so then generaly 3 is the right choice.
I also like Welding Jar, but feels so useless when there are so many spells that exiles, but against abrupt decay it's the king. So I guess it's more of a sideboard card, but I have no room for it. I have have replaced 2 Jars and 2 Masters for 4 Ravenger. I don't think Frogmite is worth it. I need more power cards. Many times I puke out my whole hand in one or two turns and the only thing that makes my board state good is a plating, ravenger or tezz. If they get removed or countered, I'm sitting there with drums, mox, memnites and thopthers and staring into opponents overpowerd cards.
Yeap, and this is one of the reasons that burn is easy to play, but hard to master. Every little decision matters and you can't afford making any mistakes.
Anyone not convinced that Faerie Macabre is the graveyard hate of choice should see Burn vs Reanimator from SCG last weekend:
http://www.twitch.tv/scglive/b/618582124?t=7h30m
Pros:
-Instant speed
-Free
-Can't be countered (except stifle)
-Can't be destroyed
-Can't be duressed
-Removes two creatures (Good in case they got two creatures in gy and plays Exhume. And you even get a 2/2 flyer in play for free!)
tl;dr: He dies with a relic in hand, and even if he had played it turn 1, he could only have exiled one card and would still die. Now imagine he had a faerie instead.
Dread of Night, also Pithing Needle.
I would say you are in great shape when you take out Exarch in responds to Splinter Twin. So many turnes gained. Ofc in mono red.
I'm talking about replacing Flames of the Blood Hand to Flame Javelin. Not adding yet another three mana cost spell. I know that burn don't want to kill creatures, but when you are staring at a Batterskull or an Exarch, you will be very glad to have Flame Javelin.
I just side in 2x Searing Blood. Skullcrack does the rest.
This is how you deal with Leyline turn 0 in the mirror: https://www.dropbox.com/s/6i3zvm27gw557ne/Burn Mirror with Leyline.cor?dl=0
People say burn is brainless, but I beg to differ. You have many more permutations of how you sequence your spells then most other decks, and you can't afford making mistakes.
When I mean filtration, I dont mean a pure cantrip, like Brainstorm or Ponder, but if we could get a good bolt with scry or something. Lava spike is already very bad relative to Lightning Bolt, so I dont see why Lava Spike couldn't have scry 1 or maybe 2.
I also like Welding Jar, but feels so useless when there are so many spells that exiles, but against abrupt decay it's the king. So I guess it's more of a sideboard card, but I have no room for it. I have have replaced 2 Jars and 2 Masters for 4 Ravenger. I don't think Frogmite is worth it. I need more power cards. Many times I puke out my whole hand in one or two turns and the only thing that makes my board state good is a plating, ravenger or tezz. If they get removed or countered, I'm sitting there with drums, mox, memnites and thopthers and staring into opponents overpowerd cards.
I wish the deck had more consistency.